


And I…. Will always… etc

by immoral_crow



Series: Inception Bingo Fills [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Bodyguard, Dubious Consent, F/M, Forgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-27 00:02:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7595479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The job of a forger is 90% smoke and mirrors and 10% compromises you wish you didn't have to make. It’s the price of admission, and Eames is willing enough to pay it when there’s no other option. He never likes it, but Eames has never been one for whining about having to face the consequences of his actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I…. Will always… etc

**Author's Note:**

> For the Bodyguards square on my bingo card. 
> 
> There is creepy, predatory behaviour in this story between an adult and a supposed child (even if the "child" is a man in his late 30s, forging a child). And yes. This story is one of the ones that is the most challenging I have written. My eternal thanks to Trojie, without whom this would have stopped after line three. 
> 
> This is still kind of an arc with the other stories, and will end happily, I swear to you.

The job is bog standard. 

“We go in, we pretend to be his bodyguards. We manufacture a threat. He leads us to where he keeps his secrets. Simple.” Arthur glares at the lot of them. “Quick in and out job.”

There are satisfied grunts from the other members of the crew, but Eames – cursing his own brain for this – raises his hand. 

“And what about me?” he asks and Arthur raises an eyebrow. 

“What about you?” Arthur asks, and Eames does his best to look a) bored and b) unaroused. 

“Why do you need a forger?” he asks, and Arthur smiles. 

“Because we need to be able to get him to trust us.” He raises an eyebrow at Eames, daring him to say that he doesn’t need Eames for that. “And someone told me that you were the best.”

The look he’s giving Eames is half challenge, half fond, and Eames finds himself holding his hands up in mock defeat, hiding his own answering look in his mug of tea. 

The fact is, the job doesn’t _need_ a forger, though it’s certainly easier with a forger on board. But then, as Eames has often thought, so many jobs are. 

The plan is as simple as Arthur promises though and for a glorious hour Eames thinks they might actually get away with this. 

It’s a standard office-scape of a dream – nothing Eames hasn’t done a hundred times before, hasn’t worked in a hundred short term waking-world jobs when he was sussing out a mark, and back before that, during the sort of mind numbing vacation jobs that his mother insisted would be character building while he was up from Oxford for the summer. 

What _is_ unusual is the outfit he’s wearing, and Eames squirms down in his chair, trying to arrange his petticoats and silently cursing the damn mark for being so fond of his twelve-year-old niece. 

God alone knows why she favours outfits like this as well. Eames is at a loss for sure. In his opinion, the point of equality is so that girls can wear what they damn well want. Why _anyone_ would want to wear this sort of get up, Eames has no idea. He’s fairly sure the only time he’s seen dresses like this in the waking world are during confirmations and first communions. 

Still, it’s what she prefers, and she seems to be the only human being the mark tolerates, so Eames straightens his skirts and sits back, fussing with the end of his plaits while he waits.

He doesn’t have to wait long. 

Arthur pushes into the room ahead of the mark, his eyes scanning for danger, skipping over Eames like he’s furniture, and it’s only when he’s assessed the threat level that he steps to one side and lets the mark in. 

“Uncle Chris!” Eames stands up, remembering how he should move, doing his best to ignore Arthur’s tightly coiled menace like only a teenage girl can. “You remembered!”

“Remembered?” The mark blinks at Eames, and Eames can see his distrust of the dream fading away in favour of something… else. “Of course I remembered, pumpkin.” 

He catches Eames by the shoulders and pulls her into a crushing hug, and Eames – stood on his tiptoes – does his best not to suffocate in the starch of the mark’s shirt, the overpowering musk of his cologne, the scent of cigars that lurks behind that all. 

“Good.” Eames twirls away, bats his lashes and smiles. “So, you’re still gonna take me for lunch?” 

“Going to,” the mark says, frowning. “How many times do I have to tell you, ‘Delia? You’re not in some American sitcom.” Arthur makes the smallest move and the mark looks up at him, his expression guarded and unpleasant. “No offence,” he says, and Arthur shrugs, the facsimile of the perfect bodyguard, unbothered by his boss’s casual insults. 

He maintains the pose through the journey to the restaurant, barely sparing Eames more than the most cursory glance. 

Eames is painfully aware of him, though, through the whole car ride, the stern lines of his face, the broad expanse of his shoulders, the slim, fitted tailoring of his suit… Eames takes a deep breath and presses himself back into his seat, closing his eyes for just a second and cursing the fates that made him choose a hormonal teenage girl for a forgery. 

“You stay here,” the mark says to Arthur as they get out of the car outside the restaurant, and it’s only because Eames is looking for it that he catches the flicker of concern that crosses Arthur’s face. 

Eames can take care of himself, though, or at least he _hopes_ he can, and he tries to broadcast that thought at Arthur as he walks past Arthur as Arthur theatrically holds the door to the restaurant open for him. 

He’s not sure he’s successful, but at least it’s a nice lunch – to begin with, anyway. 

There’s a soup that Eames has to invest all his concentration in to stop it spilling down the white front of his frock, a salad that seems to be more micro herbs than anything England would recognise, then steak – just the right side of blue that Eames would choose if he was awake. 

He’s not _quite_ sure that it’s the sort of dish that Cordelia would have chosen for herself though, and he lets himself poke the meat suspiciously with his knife as the mark grins unpleasantly at him across the table. 

“Here,” the mark – his uncle – says and pours Eames-as-Cordelia a glass of garnet red wine. “Just don’t tell your damn mother.” 

“You think I’m old enough?” Eames asks, knowing for damn sure that he isn’t.

“Of course you are.” The mark leans forward, as if he’s about to say something else, but has to pull back when a sallow, nervous looking man approaches them. 

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” the guy says and Eames picks up his wine glass to take a sip of his wine and hide his expression because he recognises this man. He’s the whole point of this extraction – to find out where the hell he’s disappeared to – and Eames can’t believe that they might be able to find out what they need to know just from listening. 

“Not at all,” the mark says, and his pleasant geniality is somehow far more chilling than anything else Eames has seen from him so far. 

“But I can see you’re busy entertaining,” the guy (McCormack, Eames remembers from the notes) leers. “And I’d hate to get in the way.”

“Sit down,” the mark growls, but he sounds more pleased than angry and he puts his hand on Eames’s knee, above the edge of the white, knee length sock, and squeezes proprietorially. 

it takes everything Eames has not to look up. Instead he takes another deep swallow of wine, listens as the mark and the guy talk about a job in the Seychelles, and tries to ignore the fingers spidering up his thigh. 

“Where should I meet you afterwards?” McCormack asks at last, and the mark shrugs, an unpleasant smile twisting the edges of his mouth. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he says and Eames’s blood runs cold. “I’ll find you.”

Eames is dizzy from the wine, from the hand gripping his thigh hard enough to hurt, and he wishes Arthur was at least in the damn room because McCormack is dead – Eames knows that beyond a shadow a doubt – and they’re going to have to get out of the dream, work out the how and the where, maybe, possibly even the why, and tell the bloke the guy was selling secrets to, because he’s the one who’s paid them to do this. 

For now though, all Eames can do is to keep his breathing steady, faking confidence at the mark, hoping that his endocrine system catches the hint and doesn’t give in to the panic that threatens to envelop him. 

He’s done this before, of course. The job of a forger is 90% smoke and mirrors and 10% compromises you wish you didn't have to make. It’s the price of admission, and Eames is willing enough to pay it when there’s no other option. He never likes it, but Eames has never been one for whining about having to face the consequences of his actions. 

But he’s never done it like this – not as a child. 

“Drink your wine,” the mark says as McCormack gets up and walks away to fulfil whatever disposable role is in store for him, to collect the consequences after he’s done it. 

“Um…” Eames starts and the mark leans over, close enough that Eames can see the beads of sweat at his hairline. 

“Did I fucking stutter?” the mark asks, and Eames shakes his head, scared now, like he’s rarely been before. “Then drink your fucking wine.” He leans back in his seat, his ankle linked around Eames’s. 

Eames reaches out and picks up his glass. His hand isn’t shaking and he takes this small triumph for the cold comfort it is. 

All of a sudden the mark’s relationship with his niece – and her own social problems – have become horribly understandable, and Eames wonders why he didn’t pick up on it before. 

He drinks his wine, the mark’s eyes heavy on him the whole time, and as he puts the glass down, he wonders if he can get out of this one. 

“Sir.” Arthur’s voice is clipped, professional, and horribly welcome. You’d probably need to be Eames to hear the anger that’s simmering through it, but Eames doesn’t waste a thought on that – not when it’s taking everything he has to stop broadcasting his relief on his face.

“What?” The anger in the mark’s voice is unmistakable and Eames can’t help it – he shrinks back in his seat. 

Arthur’s eyes flick to him, and his brows snap down, but when he speaks there isn’t a flicker of emotion in his voice. 

“We need to leave,” he says. “I’m not sure how secure this location is and…”

“God.” The mark sighs, noisy and dismissive. “It’s my favourite restaurant. I’m here all the time. It’s _safe_ – I pay them enough to make sure it damn well is.”

“Nonetheless,” Arthur says, and the mark’s lip curls. 

“ _Nonetheless_ ,” he mimics and puts his hand back on Eames’s thigh, pushing the skirt up in the process, displaying Eames’s thin white legs to Arthur’s gaze, if Arthur chose to look. “Fuck off and call your boss. Get him to remind you who’s in charge here.” He tightens his hold on Eames’s leg and starts to pull him closer. “I’m fucking busy right now.”

There’s a second where Eames thinks that Arthur will let him, that the demands of the job will outweigh the safety of an imaginary girl, but then Arthur’s expression hardens and he reaches into his jacket and pulls out his gun. 

“No,” he says, but Eames barely hears the word over the bark of gunfire and the burn of death that he’ll never get used to, no matter how many times it happens. 

He’s on his feet almost before he’s awake, signalling to the chemist that they need to pack up, get the fuck out of Dodge _now_.

Arthur’s a bare second behind him, and for an awful moment Eames thinks he’s going to ask Eames if he’s okay. But he doesn’t, just shoves the PASIV at Eames and nods at the door, pulling his gun from his holster as his eyes sweep the room, assessing the threats as competently as any professional bodyguard. 

They’re out of the building in five minutes and out of the city in thirty – well before the sedative they dosed the mark with has worn off. Arthur pulls up at the train station in the next town, SOP for a job like this, except for when Eames moves to get out of the car along with the extractor and the chemist, and Arthur leans across and grabs his wrist. 

“We need to debrief,” he says, loud enough that the others hear, and Eames shrugs at them as he settles back into his seat, refastens his seatbelt. 

Arthur doesn’t say anything as they drive off, though. His eyes are fixed on the road and his jaw is tight, and Eames has learnt – by trial and by experience – to give him space when he’s like this. 

So, he looks out the window as the miles tick past, and Arthur gradually relaxes next to him. 

They’ve been driving for two, maybe three hours when Arthur clears his throat. 

“It’s just a shame we didn’t get what we needed while we were down there,” he says and Eames opens his eyes, blinking at Arthur in confusion. 

“We did,” he says, and Arthur _finally_ takes his eyes off the road to look at Eames. 

“We did?” he asks and Eames nods. 

“Dead,” Eames says, as if that needs stating at this stage. “Maybe in the Seychelles. More likely on the way to fucking Stanstead.”

“Huh.” Arthur shifts his attention back to the road. “He just told you?”

“Yeah.” Eames watches the roadsigns flick by. “Seems there are benefits to…” He breaks off, not sure how to find the words and Arthur, his eyes still on the road, reaches out and puts his hand on Eames’s arms. 

“I should never have brought you down,” Arthur says, and there’s a horrible edge of earnest hurt to his voice. Eames fixes his eyes out the window, carefully doesn’t look across the few inches that separate him from Arthur. 

Arthur doesn’t seem to notice. 

“I didn’t need you,” he says, continuing like he’s being forced to confess against his will. “I just wanted you there.”

“It’s fine,” Eames tells him, because that part of it is. Eames had guessed that much within three minutes of Arthur telling him about the job. 

“It isn’t.” Arthur looks at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Look at you.”

“What?” There are very few things – even fewer people – who can sting Eames’s professional pride. It just so happens that Arthur is one of those things. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Arthur sighs, tired, and tightens his grip on the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. “You’re hurting. I’ve only ever seen you hurt two, maybe three, times.”

He’s avoiding looking at Eames, and Eames is stupidly, profoundly grateful. 

“Just…” Arthur chews his lip. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Yeah?” Eames forces himself to keep his voice light. “So what were you going to do?” He raises an eyebrow at Arthur. “You took the job; the niece was the only one he’d open up to.”

“That wasn’t the only way,” Arthur says, his voice tight. “We could have taken what we needed.”

“By force?” Eames shakes his head. “You know what that would do to his mind.”

“I don’t care,” Arthur says, and the thing is, Eames doesn’t doubt him in the slightest. He’s tired and sore inside, in the places he usually chooses to ignore and the temptation is too overwhelming to resist. He lets his head rest on Arthur’s shoulder, sighing into the fabric of Arthur’s jacket. 

There’s a heavy moment in the car, where the future hangs into the balance, then Arthur sighs and relaxes. 

“Fuck it,” he says. “You’re coming home with me.”

Eames, slipping down the seat, can’t find it in himself to argue with that. Over the past few years, Arthur has come to mean safety, and whatever else has changed, this hasn’t.


End file.
